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Legal Privacy Policy

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Valenz Privacy Statement

Introduction

VALENZ AG and its affiliates (hereafter “Valenz”, “the Company”, “we” or “us”) is a global leader in the methanol marketing industry.

We understand that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how information relating to you (“Personal Data”) is used. Valenz is committed to ensuring the privacy and security of the Personal Data it processes from customers, vendors, employees, and other individuals, and to protect their rights in accordance with our obligations under applicable Privacy and Data Protection laws. 

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how Valenz collects and processes your Personal Data. 

1. What processing activities are covered under this Privacy Notice?

This Privacy Notice informs you how we collect, use, disclose, and process your Personal Data in our role as a Data Controller when you:

  • Interact or use our website valenzgroup.com or any other service that displays or links to this Privacy Notice, including accessing or downloading materials from the resources or portals available on this to you on this website or requesting information about our Services (our “Website”);
  • Visit our branded social media pages;
  • Visit our offices;
  • Receive communications from us or otherwise communicate with us, including but not limited to emails, phone calls, or texts;
  • Log in in our portal using your client credentials;
  • Provide your Personal Data for the purposes of administering or use our Services and managing our relationship with you in any manner, e.g., setting up an account or collecting your Personal Data to process an invoice for accounting purposes, or creating an account for you to access any of our portals;
  • Register for, attend or take part in our events or webinars (collectively, “Events”);
  • Contacting us through our contact form available in our website;
  • Registering or sending information through our career portal or by sending your personal details by email;
  • Subscribing to our newsletter, mailings. 
  • Participate in surveys, research or other similar data collection facilitated by us.

Website of third parties

Our Websites and Services may contain links to other websites, applications, platforms and services maintained by third parties. The information practices of these third parties, including the social media platforms that host our branded social media pages, are governed by their privacy statements, which you should review to better understand their privacy practices.

2. Where do we collect your data from?

Personal Data we collect directly from you

The Personal Data we collect directly from you may include identifiers, contact details, professional or employment-related data, financial account data, commercial data, visual data, and internet activity data, as well as any other data you choose to provide us. We may collect such information, for example, in the following situations:

SituationsCategories of Personal Data
If you express an interest in obtaining additional information about our Services; communicate with us via a phone call, e-mail address; visit our offices; use our contact for or similar features; register to receive communications, newsletters; sign up for an event or webinar; participate in a survey (e.g., customer satisfaction); use our Services; or otherwise communicate with us.Contact information, such as your name, job title, company name, address, phone number, email address, other information voluntarily chosen to share with us.
If you attend an eventAttendee contact details which may include name, title, company name, address, country, phone number and email address, image and video.
If you visit our Website or interact with us via social mediaInformation about your device and your usage of our Websites or emails (such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or other identifiers), which may qualify as Personal Data using cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies, any information you choose to share with us.
If you use our Services/ customer portals Name, business contact details like e-mail and business address, job title, company name, phone number, financial company bank account, transaction information, e-mails that might contain personal information, other information voluntarily chosen to share with us.
If you are a supplier or service provider to Valenz (or work for a supplier or service provider)Contact information, payment and billing information.
If you apply through our career portal, LinkedIn accounts or you apply for a vacancy through our email address Name, contact details, professional background,  and all the job-related information that you voluntarily choose to provide to us. 


If you provide us Personal Data relating to other individuals (e.g., individuals working for a client, an affiliate or a service provider), you represent that you have the authority to do so, and where required, have obtained the necessary consent, and acknowledge that it may be used in accordance with this Privacy Notice. If you believe that your Personal Data has been provided to us improperly, or want to exercise your rights relating to your Personal Data, please contact us by using the information in Section 13 below.

Personal Data we collect from other sources

From the Services / from our Customers / Vendors: We receive and store your data, or your company provided directly to us, to satisfy customer contract obligations. For example, when setting up new customers for our Services, we collect Personal Data, such as name and e-mail address, to provide our clients with the Services. The types of information we may collect directly from our customers and their users include names, usernames, email addresses, postal addresses, phone numbers, job titles, transactional information, as well as other contact or other information they choose to provide us or upload to our systems in connection with the Services. Other personal information we process may vary depending on the requirements specified in customer contracts.  In those cases, we assume that those entities have the authority to do so and that you have obtained appropriate consent where necessary.

From Third Parties and Partners: We may also collect your data from other publicly available sources, including third parties from whom we purchase Personal Data and combine this information with Personal Data provided by you. 

For example, we may get a list of attendees of a conference where we were present, or we may use analytical or statistical services such as the one provided by Piwik PRO Analytics Suite to better understand your use of our Website and Services to better understand our client’s needs and to optimize the service and experience, or use advertising and marketing partners.

3. What Device and Usage Data do we process?

We use common information-gathering tools, such as tools for collecting data, cookies, web beacons, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information that may contain Personal Data as you navigate our Websites, our Services, or interact with emails we have sent to you. This information includes URL information, online identifiers such as cookie data and IP addresses, other identifiers such as user ID, organization ID, username, email address, name, and user type, pages and files viewed, search queries, and other actions you take, information about your device such as your device ID, hardware model, app version, access times and dates, IP addresses, network connection type, carrier and region, geolocation of the website visitor, provider, plug-ins, integrations, referring website, app or ad, browser type, language, date and stamps time, and operating system. 

Usage Data also includes information collected via Cookies. The Cookie Banner available in the Website will notify you separately of which cookies are being collected, and will give you an option to customize and consent (or not) the Cookies we would like to collect, together with information about types and use of Cookies.

Cookies

We use cookies on our website. We use functional and strictly necessary cookies that are used to enhance the performance and functionality of our website to give the visitors a better browsing experience. We also collect analytical cookies through the use of Piwik PRO Analytics Suite (as described below). Cookies are small text files that are stored on your system and provide us with certain information.

On our website we use transient and persistent cookies. Transient cookies are automatically deleted when you close the browser. This includes in particular the session cookies. These store a so-called session ID, with which different requests of your browser can be assigned to the common session. This allows your computer to be recognized when you return to our website. Session cookies are deleted when you log out or close your browser. Persistent cookies are automatically deleted after a specified period, which may vary depending on the cookie. You can delete cookies at any time in the security settings of your browser. You can configure your browser settings according to your preferences and, for example, refuse the acceptance of third party cookies or all cookies. Please note that in this case you may not be able to use all functions of the website. We also use cookies to identify you for follow-up visits if you have an account with us. Otherwise you would have to log in again for each visit.

The use of cookies serves to make the use of our website a more pleasant experience for you and to optimise user-friendliness. We also use cookies to compile statistics on the use of our website, to help us evaluate it and improve it to serve your needs. These cookies enable us to realize automatically that this is not your first visit when you return to our site. These cookies are automatically deleted after a defined period of time. We also use cookies for marketing and advertising purposes. 

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

We use Piwik PRO Analytics Suite as our website/app analytics software and consent management tool. We collect data about website visitors based on cookies. This allow us to improve our website and see how users and visitors interact with it. The collected information may include a visitor’s IP address, operating system, browser ID, browsing activity and other information. See the scope of data collected by Piwik PRO.

We calculate metrics like bounce rate, page views, sessions and the like to understand how our website/app is used. We may also create visitors’ profiles based on browsing history to analyze visitor behavior, show personalized content and run online campaigns.

We host our solution on Microsoft Azure in Germany/Netherlands/United States/Hong Kong/ElastX in Sweden, and the data is stored for 14/25 months.

The purpose of data processing: analytics and conversion tracking based on consent. Legal basis: Art. 6 (1)(a) GDPR.

Piwik PRO does not send the data about you to any other sub-processors or third parties and does not use it for its own purposes. For more, read Piwik PRO’s privacy policy.

4. How and Why do we use your Personal Data?

We collect and process your Personal Data for the following purposes and relying on the following legal bases:

PurposeDescriptionLegal Basis
Providing and improving our Websites (including our social media pages)We process your Personal Data to operate and administer our Websites and to provide you with the content you access and request.We process your Personal Data to analyze overall trends and help us improve the user experience on our websites.Our legitimate interest in providing relevant online content and well-functioning Websites to our customers and prospective customers regarding our service offering and related information
Displaying personalized interactions, advertisements, and content We process your Personal Data to conduct market research, advertise to you, provide personalized information about us on and off our Websites and to provide other personalized content and interactions with you based upon your activities and interests.Our legitimate interest in providing best-in-class Services to our customers, including advertising our Services or, where necessary, to the extent you have provided your prior consent
Registering visitors to our premises We process your Personal Data in our registration form for security reasonsOur legitimate interest in protecting our offices, staff, visitors and our confidential information against unauthorized access
Managing event and webinar registrationsWe process your Personal Data to plan and host events or webinars for which you have registered or that you attend, including sending related communications to you
(i) Your consent when providing us the information; (ii) Our legitimate interest in providing Services requested by individuals or companies 
Sending communications, administering surveys, and conducting researchWe process your Personal Data to send you marketing information, product recommendations and other non-transactional communicationsOur legitimate interest in conducting direct marketing or where you have provided your prior consent
Recording phone calls, webinars. We process your Personal Data, including recording phone calls (in accordance with applicable laws) for quality assurance, and administration purposesConsent or our legitimate interest in maintaining the high quality of our phone calls with customers
Handling contact and user support requestsWe process your Personal Data, if you request user support, or if you contact us by other means including but not limited to via phoneNecessary for the performance of a contract or our legitimate interest in fulfilling your requests and communicating with you
Providing, developing and optimizing the performance of the Services We process your Personal Data to develop, optimize, provision, and improve the performance of the Services and to satisfy our obligations under the applicable terms of useOur legitimate interest to provide and administer our Services in line with customer expectations
Where applicable, compliance with legal obligations incumbent on us.
Managing our customer and user accountsWe process your Personal Data (including Usage Data) to manage customer and user accounts generally, such as billing, customer correspondence, customer relationship management, and maintaining your user account in our portal.Our legitimate interest in the management of customer and user accounts
Managing usage complianceWe process your Personal Data (including Usage Data) to assess and manage usage compliance with the applicable terms of use of our ServicesOur legitimate interest in managing the provision of our Services to customers
Maintaining our security We process your Personal Data (including your Usage Data) for the purposes of maintaining Valenz own security, including investigating, detecting and preventing suspicious activity, fraud and cybercrime that may affect Valenz or its ServicesOur legitimate interest in promoting the safety and security of Valenz generally and to protect our rights and the rights of others
Managing job applicationsWe process your Personal Data  (including your Usage Data) for in relation to the position you apply for. The purpose of talent acquisition, including assessing capabilities, reference checks.Legitimate interests to hire qualified employees and for our administrative purposes, aggregate management reporting, internal training, and as generally required to conduct our business
Undertaking financial reporting,  managing payments, Preparing internal reports, and business modelling We process your Personal Data (including your Usage Data) for the purposes of financial reporting, modelling purposes (e.g., forecasting), and to collect payments to the extent that doing so is necessary to complete a transaction and perform our contract with you.Our legitimate interest in meeting our obligations associated with the reporting of our finances, management of our business operations, and necessary for the performance of a contract.
Aggregating dataWe process your Personal Data (including your Usage and Cookie Data) for the purposes of aggregating this information to ensure that it is no longer identifying youOur legitimate interest in minimizing the amount of Personal Data processed as part of the noted processing activity  
Complying with legal obligationsWe process your Personal Data (including Usage Data) when cooperating with public and government authorities, courts or regulators in accordance with our legal obligations under applicable laws to the extent this requires the processing or disclosure of Personal Data to protect our rightsLegal obligation incumbent on Valenz, like a law enforcement or national security request, to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or our legitimate interest in protecting against misuse or abuse of our Websites or Services, protecting personal property or safety, pursuing remedies available to us and limiting our damages, complying with judicial proceedings, court orders or legal processes, responding to lawful requests, or for auditing purposes

5. Who do we share Personal Data with?

Where applicable, we share your Personal Data in the following circumstances:

Vendors, contractors, and other service providers

Valenz may share personal data with services providers or other third parties that carry out functions or services in our behalf or that assist or enable our operations. These Service Providers include hosting, email and collaboration service providers website analytics companies, freelancers, product feedback or help desk/customer support and CRM service providers head-hunters, the website in which you submitted your employment application (if applicable),  travel agencies and travel service providers, payrolling vendor scheduling programs and IT processing systems.

Personal Data will only be disclosed if such Service Providers have provided sufficient guarantees to implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal data and that is consistent with this Privacy Statement and applicable law. Please note that these Service Providers will only access your Personal Data on an “if needed” basis as a part of their partnerships with us. If you have any questions as to how these Service Providers handle your Personal Data, you may contact us using the details provided in Section 13

Business Transfers

We may choose to buy or sell assets, and may share and/or transfer customer information, including Personal Data, in connection with the evaluation of and entry into such transactions and based on our legitimate interests. Also, if we (or our assets) are acquired, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, Personal Data could be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.

We may also share Personal Data with external professional advisors such as lawyers or accountants.

Valenz Group Companies, partners and affiliates

We may also share your Personal Data with our parent companies, subsidiaries and/or affiliates for purposes consistent with this Privacy Notice. Personal Data is transferred between Valenz Entities to ensure efficient and effective business operations and to enable Valenz Entities to provide customer, sales, marketing, human resource, finance, information technology, legal, quality assurance, software/product development, and other support services.

6. How long do we keep your Personal Data?

We may retain your Personal Data for a period of time consistent with the original purpose of collection (see Section 4 above) or as long as required to fulfill our legal obligations. We determine the appropriate retention period for Personal Data on the basis of the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the Personal Data being processed, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the Personal Data, whether we can achieve the purposes of the processing through other means, and on the basis of applicable legal requirements (such as applicable statutes of limitation).

After expiry of the applicable retention periods, your Personal Data will be deleted. If there is any data that we are unable, for technical reasons, to delete entirely from our systems, we will implement appropriate measures to prevent any further use of such data.

7. How do we Secure your Personal Data?

We take appropriate precautions including organizational, technical, and physical security measures to help safeguard against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, and unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, the Personal Data we process or use.

While we follow generally accepted standards to protect Personal Data, Valenz cannot fully guarantee the security of the information since it may rely on the use of different security systems including the system you are using to communicate with us. You are solely responsible for protecting your password, limiting access to your devices, maintaining up-to-date and patched version of software and operating system, and signing out of our Website after your sessions.

8. Transferring your Data to Other Countries.

Valenz is a company operating globally. Your Personal Data may be transferred to and stored by us or by our affiliates and third parties described in Section 5 above, located in other countries. Consequently, your Personal Data may be processed outside your jurisdiction, and in countries that may not provide for the same level of data protection as your jurisdiction. However, we ensure that the recipient of your Personal Data provides an adequate level of protection, for example by entering into appropriate processing agreements and, if necessary, standard contractual clauses or an alternative lawful data transfer mechanism. 

9. What are your Privacy Rights?

Privacy laws give you rights over your Personal Data. We do our best to honor each request according to your instructions and applicable regulations. Some rights only apply when Valenz uses a certain ‘legal basis’ to process your data, as explained in Section 4, and when Valenz acts as data controller. 

Your rights include the following:

  • The right to access your Personal Data;
  • The right to have your Personal Data rectified, corrected or updated;
  • The right to have your Personal Data deleted, including from any third parties where your Personal Data has been sold, shared or disclosed;
  • The right to object or restrict to the processing of your Personal Data;
  • The right to obtain your personal data in a portable forms, right to Data Portability;
  • The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing and profiling, which produces legal effects; and
  • The right to lodge a complaint before your local supervisory authority.

You can exercise your rights using the contact details provided in Section 13.

Your Personal Data will be processed when responding to these rights requests and we may request you additional documentation to verify your identity before fulfilling your request. We respond to all legitimate requests within one month and will contact you if we need additional information from you to fulfill your request or to verify your identity. If we are unable to comply with your request due to an exception or limitation, we will explain this in writing. If we need more time, we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

Should you have concerns about your privacy rights or should you feel unsatisfied with our treatment, collection, or use of your Personal Data, we remind you that you have a right to lodge a complaint with your local  supervisory authority. For EEA authorities, please see this directory for contact details: https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en. For Switzerland, please visit this FDPIC site for contact details:  https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/deredoeb/kontakt.html. For the United Kingdom, please see this site for contact details: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.

10. Marketing Communications

You can opt-out of receiving promotional or marketing communications from us at any time, by using the unsubscribe link in the emails communications we send, or by contacting us using the details provided in Section 13. Please note that if you have accounts for our Services, we will still send you non-promotional communications, like service-related emails.

11. Children

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 16. If you are under 16, please do not attempt to register for the Services or send any Personal Data about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected Personal Data from a child under age 16, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 16 may have provided us Personal Data, please contact us at privacy@valenzgroup.com.

12. Changes to the Privacy Notice

We are constantly trying to improve our Website and Services, so we may need to change this Privacy Notice from time to time. We will alert you to material changes by, for example, placing a notice on our Websites and/or by sending you an email (if you have registered your e-mail details with us) when we are required to do so by applicable law. You can see when this Privacy Notice was last updated by checking the date at the bottom of this page. You are responsible for periodically reviewing this Privacy Notice.

13. Contact Us

For any questions or concerns about this Notice, contact our Data Protection Officer any one of these ways: 

Samstagernstrasse 41 
Wollerau, Schwyz 8832, CH

Last updated, September, 18, 2023.